


Radical Notion

by melonbutterfly



Series: We Built Our Own World [1]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Fallen Angels, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-02
Updated: 2012-10-02
Packaged: 2017-11-15 12:24:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 925
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/527288
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/melonbutterfly/pseuds/melonbutterfly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"You could play, like Balthazar," Castiel suggested, desperate; he couldn't lose her, they couldn't lose her.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Radical Notion

"I just don't-"

"Come with me," Anael said, determination vibrating from her, and it wasn't an order, but it was. And she was his sister, his friend; one of his closest friends, in fact. Castiel may not have agreed with her, but he wanted to understand how she got so involved in her doubts, and so he followed her.

What she showed him wasn't new; many angels watched humanity. It wasn't like there was much else to do, one of the last orders having been to not get involved in Earth or Hell affairs. Castiel watched humans often, most of them had done it at one point or another.

But Anael had apparently watched a lot closer than Castiel tended to, and she obviously looked in different places. As he drifted after her, intrigued and vaguely confused at the fact that they were looking at private homes with ordinary humans inside, fighting, laughing, ignoring each other and altogether not doing anything of significance, he absently wondered how she had come to look at places like this in the first place. Angels were naturally drawn to churches, to sites of religious significance – the place where Jesus had held his last supper, where Moses had stood to part the ocean, Noah's gravesite. It wasn't in their nature to be more than mildly curious, or at least so Castiel had been told.

"Anael," he asked hesitantly when they paused, keeping still and watching a family of two parents and two young children share a meal, speaking to each other.

"They're smiling," she said. "Have you ever wondered why angels never smile?"

He hadn't, and he told her as much. It was puzzling, smiling; showing your teeth like that had aggressive connotations for most animals, but to humans, it meant the exact opposite. He thought maybe that was why Anael found smiling remarkable, but when he said it, she turned still and withdrew into herself a little. She was not hurt, Castiel could tell as much, but she seemed... disappointed.

"You can't see it, can you?" she asked, and now she emitted wistfulness, pulling away from the human family.

Castiel couldn't. "Please explain," he requested hesitantly, carefully. He was worried about her, but he kept that worry close to himself.

"Humans... humans _do_ so much," she said. "They sing and eat and love and hate and move and _live_. All we do is wait for orders."

"It is how it always has been," Castiel replied, confused.

"But it's not!" she burst out, flaring with temper and hurt and confusion, none of which aimed at him. "There are no orders, Castiel, there haven't been orders in so long, and still all we do is wait."

"We also sing, and we observe," Castiel pointed out. "Sometimes, we communicate about scripture."

"Not all of us," Anael returned. "Gabriel left a long time ago. We haven't seen Michael in almost as long. Jophiel fell not long after Michael's last confirmed sight, and then Samael, Loriel..."

"I know," Castiel interrupted her quietly. It wasn't proper, interrupting his superior like that, but he liked to think that he and Anael had formed a close friendship, and she had never chastised him for not following protocol. And he just wouldn't be able to listen to her list all their fallen brothers and sisters; it still hurt, the empty places in the choir they had left behind. They had lost so many already during the war, but at least there had been a reason then. Falling, this abandonment of everything an angel was and had, ripping out their _grace_... the mere idea hurt, and Castiel curled up a little.

"I'm sorry," Anael said, and suddenly, Castiel understood.

"No!" he exclaimed, terrified for her. "You can't mean that, Anael, not-"

"Castiel, Castiel," she murmured, curling around him, her grace warm and familiar as his own. "I just can't go on like this," she explained, and their frequencies mingled at the edges as she let him in, trying to show him in a different way. As she did so, he felt her confusion, her deep, deep sadness and a curiously intense yearning. And Castiel still didn't understand, not really – not this, at least. Her doubts, yes, her emotions, but not that she would go this far. What she was hoping to achieve with this.

"You could play, like Balthazar," Castiel suggested, desperate; he couldn't lose her, they couldn't lose her. Jophiel had been the first, but many others had fallen after him, forever separate from their siblings, and it _hurt_.

"He skirts the line because he enjoys it," Anael replied. "He doesn't truly want anything else. He just wants to have fun, frustrate his superiors. I don't... I want the real thing, Castiel. I want _life_. We're all dead. We've been slowly dying for thousands of years, and I just can't go on like this."

"Not this," he whispered, even though he now knew as well as she did that she had already made her decision.

"I'm sorry," she replied, and he could feel that she meant it – and also that she didn't mean it enough not to do it.

"I love you," she said, pushing further into him. The sudden flood of thoughts and emotions not his own dazzled him for not even a second, but it was long enough for her to rip away from him before he could stop her, and then she was gone.

Castiel and the whole Host along with him felt her split away from her grace, both of them plummeting to Earth.


End file.
